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October 11, 2013

Ashley's Halloween House {Outdoor Decor}

My sister is a Halloween fanatic! She throws the most amazing Halloween parties, and starts to purchase Halloween items 12 months in advance - at all the "day after Halloween" sales ;)

Her home is a treasure trove of great Halloween ideas, and I wanted to share a few of them with you!

One of my favorite decorations she has is this Halloween direction sign, which she made entirely herself.

She based the idea loosely on the directional sign I made a couple years ago - but boy, did she take this to a whole new level! I covet it, highly :)

Each piece of the sign is made with plywood. She cut 1.5 foot x 4 inch rectangles using a circle saw.
Then, she used a miter saw to cut 45 degree angle arrow points.

She started painting them all white, and then painted the fronts and backs black - to give herself a blank canvas. And the best part?? The drawings and paintings are all her own, done by hand! I love how inventive and clever they are!!

The words are white vinyl, however those could also be hand painted if you didn't have access to a vinyl cutting machine. I have a tutorial for hand painting words here on another Halloween project I did.

The post and stand are glued and nailed together, and then, with the post laying flat on the counter, each of the direction signs were placed at funky angles, and up and down at slightly different directions, some overlapping. It looks perfectly crazy to me... They were secured with a combination of wood glue and small finishing nails - making this a durable sign!

Plus, how awesome are those lanterns hanging from the ends?! And the one on top...

These black trees are another awesome Ashley-made Halloween decoration.

When these trees died in her yard, she didn't send them to the yard waste pile. Instead, she took the spindly stick trees and preserved them.

She painted them completely black with spray paint, and then anchored them inside these big, black pots. To anchor them, she wrapped metal hangers around the bottom, and twisted them tight, pulling the 4 ends through 4 holes she had drilled right at the top of the pot. The ends got twisted so they would stay outside the holes, and make the wire really taught against the tree. Now her trees aren't going anywhere! Some fake moss completes the pot, and makes a really awesome outdoor decoration!

Her Happy Halloween Banner is made using this method here (minus the ruffles) - and I love how it brings out the colors in the direction sign.

Stay tuned for more Halloween treasures from Ashley's house (this is just the outside!) ;)